Japan's Last Nuclear Reactor Shuts Down

AmiMoJo writes "Japan's last active reactor is shutting down today, leaving the country without nuclear energy for the first time since 1970. All 50 commercial reactors in the country are now offline. 19 have completed stress tests but there is little prospect of them being restarted due to heavy opposition from local governments. Meanwhile activists in Tokyo celebrated the shutdown and asked the government to admit that nuclear power was no longer needed in Japan and to concentrate on safety. If this summer turns out to be as hot as 2010 some areas could be asked to make 15% power savings to avoid shortages, while other areas will be unaffected due to savings already made."

Math?

[jklovanc]

Before the accident 27% of Japan's energy came from nuclear power. Even if everyone could 15% (which is impossible because many big users are already conserving due to costs) that still leaved 12% unaccounted for. Sure green power can make up for some of that in the long term but in the short term it means increased import and burning of fossil fuels [washingtonpost.com]. A 54% increase in fossil fuel base electricity production in one year is significant.

Re:Thorium Nuclear

[Anonymous Coward]

Thorium reactors have some major hurdles that are not widely talked about. Molten sodium and other light metals are highly erosive and destroy the containment pipes they flow through. There are so far no materials that can withstand the corrosion. Sorenson talks about Thorium like you could build it today, which just isn't true. Thorium is very promising, but it is far off, much like nuclear fusion reactors. While Russia has built a test fusion reactor it only runs for 1000s at a time. Not long enough yet.

Re:Greenies have won while the majority in Japan l

[Kenja]

2002-2008 the United States handed out subsidies to fossil fuel industries to a tune of 72 billion dollars. I sure wish the government would block me like that...

Re:Greenies have won while the majority in Japan l

[Kreigaffe]

So 12 billion a year across a wide industry, of which how many companies went bankrupt? Didn't Solyndra get 2 billion? Wasn't there a few other billion-dollar handouts to solar firms that have gone belly-up?

Government money should not be involved in the creation or propping up of business and industry. Research, yes, and if such research leads to advancements that are economically feasible and viable.. money will find and support those advancements.

It's not just misinformation

[rsilvergun]

the trouble with Nuclear is the disasters are so bad, and sooner or later the reactors get privatized and some wealthy jackass cuts funding to safety. Since he doesn't live anywhere near the disaster (or could just move if he did) he's fine. Running a nuclear reactor is very, very expensive. So there's a LOT of money to be made by cutting corners and skipping maintenance. The kind of people who run our world (thanks to the way inheritance works) are not very bright either. Unless safety can be made so cheap that the margins aren't good enough to attract your average capitalist you'll never have 100% safe nuclear power.

Re:Save Face, not Environment

[LordLimecat]

Water also has the problem of having killed probably more people than any other form of electricity. Care to guess what happens when a large dam experiences "issues" on the scale of Fukushima? Heres a hint, it doesnt result in a mere 1 person hospitalized from radiation. Try a few hundred thousand dead.

Re:Save Face, not Environment

[AmiMoJo]

Are you seriously trying to pin dam failure on hydroelectric power? In all cases were dams have failed and killed people those dams were not built simply to provide electricity, rather the turbines were a nice added extra on a project to control a large volume of water. It would be like blaming your car stereo for the chassis falling apart.

Re:Save Face, not Environment

[pseudofrog]

Some sources say the death toll will reach 4,000. Others predict somewhere in the 20,000-60,000 range. Greenpeace predicts up to 200,000. One Russian publication said 1,000,000, but their methodology has been thoroughly panned. Unfortunately, it doesn't stop some anti-nuclear idealogues from citing it, despite being five times greater than the already dubious Greenpeace estimate.

Radiation

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

A lot of the is policy and radiation fears.

They are people (quasi-illegally) living in the exclusion zone.

And they aren't all dropping dead of cancer. Imagine that.

If the US became as radioactive as the exclusion zone, and smoking decreased by 5% and people exercised 5% more, and 5% more people would get colonoscopies the overll cancer rate would PLUNGE.